I'd like to start a discussion based on an opinion I noted in a previous
thread[1] -- the preferred use of a Wiki as opposed to static HTML for some
of what we currently have living in our webspace.
Currently, the trunk/www directory on subversion.tigris.org has 64 HTML
files of various mixed purposes -- project information, open letters to Some
Body, testimonials, merge tracking design documents, Tigris.org navigation
overrides, and so on. For the most part, they are all lumped into a single
flat directory structure. Many of the HTML files in there are effectively
static; some change more often. Some of the information there is the sort
that's sanctioned by the project as a whole; some (like our links page)
could arguably stand to be more community-maintained.
In my experience (which is admittedly somewhat limited here), there are
going to be pros and cons to using a wiki. Wikis tend to offer, shall we
say, less-than-ideal control over the look and feel of the pages as a whole,
and less-fine-grained control over individual UI elements. Paragraphs,
lists, and links all over the place are nice, safe, wiki-friendly content
classes. You start getting into tables and images and custom stylations on
page elements and divisions, and you find yourself reaching more often for
the ibuprofen. And while the wiki syntax is intended to be somewhat
liberating to folks who don't want to mess with HTML tags, it can be someone
restrictive in its particular interpretation of whitespace and indentation
and stuff, too. That said, good wikis tend to be forgiving when accessing
non-existent pages, offering options to search for the content you thought
you were looking for. They offer history of changes more readily to users.
But unless you're opening up the wiki to community editing, there's not a
pleasant way for random passers-by to suggest changes (they can't just send
a patch file).
So, here's my first question (because if we don't get past this one, nothing
else matters): To what degree are folks interesting in moving some of our
web content (and possibly other stuff, too, like our notes/ contents) into a
wiki?
NOTE: I'm making two assumptions here: (1) that we would never consider
using a Wiki that didn't send page change notifications to our commits@ list
(or maybe a dedicated wiki@), and (2) that any wiki service that the ASF
provided would be covered by their backup mechanisms.
What say you?
-- C-Mike
[1] http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2009-11/0821.shtml
--
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato_at_collab.net>
CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand
Received on 2009-12-03 22:07:17 CET